


(Woman) Out Of Time

by Potatemo



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 21:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11906739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Potatemo/pseuds/Potatemo
Summary: Piper is grateful for her life with two people she cares about more than anything. More so, she knows how easy it is to watch it collapse.





	(Woman) Out Of Time

**Author's Note:**

> I had to get this one out of my system before I started a longer, less angsty fo4 fic. Comments and kudos if you enjoy it, thank you so much!

To say their work was dangerous was an understatement. It was more like dodging-bullets-on-a-daily-basis-and-barely-escaping-with-your-life sort of dangerous. Or more so.   
It was days like these that made Piper realise just how much she was putting on the line for people she barely even knew. Piper picked up the small stack of newspapers fresh out of the printing press, this issue of Publick Occurrences was to be the height of her career. Or so she hoped. There was only so much the poor journalist could deal with in her life. Warmth grew in her chest as she looked down at the headline, describing how her lover had taken down the Commonwealth Boogeyman, The Institute. Piper passed the newspapers to Nat, pausing to watch the Diamond City sunrise, sunlight glinting off tin roofs in the market. Something else caught her eye, the flash of sunlight on a rifle, and her heart swelled when she saw who it belonged to.  
"Blue!" Piper squealed with glee, running straight into the Minutemen General's arms.   
"I missed you" she breathed, into the lapel of Nora's jacket.   
"I missed you too" Nora chuckled softly, "But please, do not do that again. I nearly shot you"   
"Oh, come on, Blue! You'd never do that" Piper joked playfully. On a more serious note, she added, "How was your time in Sanctuary?"  
"Oh, you know, the usual. Building water pumps and turrets here, fighting raiders there" she sighed.   
Piper gasped.   
"Raiders?" She scanned Nora for injuries as if her lover would collapse as she spoke.   
"Hey, relax, it was nothing me and Preston couldn't handle. Just a couple of junkies with crowbars" Nora said.   
"Preston and I" Piper corrected. Nora rolled her eyes.  
"How is Preston anyway? I haven't really spoken to him since..." She trailed off, gesturing to the headline of the Publick she was holding.   
"Oh, he's good. Although that's what I'm here to speak to you about" Nora ended in a more serious tone.   
"Is everything alright? Actually, that's a stupid question. Who needs saving this time?" Piper asked dejectedly.   
"A settlers' son has joined some raiders, and they, the raiders I mean, keep threatening them. Telling them to give them all the farm produce or they'll kill 'em" Nora explained, but Piper could tell she was holding back. Nora flicked the safety on and off her rifle. A nervous habit.   
"And?" Piper narrowed her eyes in suspicion. Nora could usually have these types of things done in minutes. Something was amiss here.   
"And.... these aren't ordinary raiders. They call themselves 'The Forged' , or something like that anyway. I checked out the ironworks they're hiding in, but I knew I couldn't take them all on alone" Nora confessed.   
"So.. you need my help? All you had to do was ask" Piper said with a smirk.   
"Actually, I was thinking the press might find a story of interest or two along the way" Nora teased, "Wouldn't want my favourite nosy reporter to miss out on a good scoop." Nora playfully pushed Piper's press cap down over her eyes. Piper hated it when she did that.   
Pushing her cap back to its proper place, Piper wrapped herself around her lover.   
"Goodness, Blue, all the excitement you've given me is enough to write about for a lifetime"  
Nora pecked her on the cheek.   
"And I wouldn't have it any other way"  
"Ewww, gross!" Nat squirmed as she hurried past the couple. 

"Blue?" Piper asked, an edge to her voice that Nora knew meant she was about to get yelled at. "Is that... does that raider have a flamethrower?"  
Nora gulped.   
"Uh.. I think so? Maybe?"  
"I can't believe you sometimes" Piper muttered, but the words held no venom. She watched as Nora carefully aimed her rifle at the lone Raider wielding the flamethrower. Piper winced as the shot cracked through the air, and the raider fell down dead.   
And then all hell broke loose.   
Piper and Nora scrambled for cover as three raiders armed with more flamethrowers thundered around the corner. Leaning out from their cover, Piper and Nora had managed to take down two Forged members before Nora noticed the Raider with a switchblade sneak up behind piper.   
She leaned dangerously out of her safe spot to shoot the Raider in the head, his knife poised over Piper. Just as Nora was about to sigh in relief, the rush of flames from a flamethrower sent her crashing to the floor, and she screeched in hysterics when she realised her sleeve had caught fire.   
Piper stood up to see Nora rolling in the dirt, desperately trying to pat out her sleeve that had caught alight. Piper watched in amusement, and would have laughed had it not been for the fact that Nora had nearly gotten her face scorched off saving her. She glanced down at the dead raider with a knife just behind her. Her Blue really was quite something.   
Once Nora had pulled herself together, the pair sneaked through the doors to the ironworks. Nora quickly killed two raiders patrolling the ground floor with two well placed shots from her rifle.   
"Wow Blue, you really are on fire today" Piper teased, earning a glare from Nora that would have caused anyone other than Piper to drop dead on the spot.   
"Really not funny, or appropriate" Nora growled, but her eyes grew soft with concern. "That Raider nearly butchered you like a brahmin"

Piper and Nora stalked the first floor of the ironworks, silently picking off Raiders from the roof beams.   
"I don't think we're far now" Nora whispered, just as a machine gun turret clicked into life and began raining bullets on the pair. Piper unceremoniously shoved Nora to the ground with her behind a roof beam, and Nora took out the turret with a well aimed shot.   
"Right, okay. Jake Finch, the boy who ran off to join the Forged should be just behind these doors. Try not to shoot him, I'm going to try and talk them down first, but if things get ugly, watch my back" Nora instructed, and Piper nodded.   
"Be careful. I love you"  
The pair embraced each other for a few seconds, before Nora straightened herself and pulled away from Piper's grip. She strode through the doors where either another successful mission or a miserable death awaited. 

"So, you're the General" A man in power armour addressed Nora. She nodded curtly. "And what business do you have here, killing my brothers and threatening me?" He questioned.   
"I could ask you the same question" Nora answered coolly, "All I ask is that you make peace with Finch farm, and, return Jake to his father if he so wishes"  
Piper saw fear flash across Jake's face, but it was gone in an instant.   
"I am a member of the Forged now. Abraham Finch means nothing to me" he spoke.   
"Very well" Nora wavered.   
"I believe you now have no business with us here. Boys?" The man in power armour addressed the few men surrounding him.   
"Kill them"  
It all happened too fast. A mini-gun whirred to life as Nora threw something on the floor towards the man, and then she darted back to Piper and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her behind a stack of sandbags just as Piper felt pain explode in her leg, at the same time an explosion rocked the world around them. Piper groaned in pain as Nora grabbed something from her pocket, and injected the stimpak into Piper's leg, one above and one below the wound. She began to feel better already.   
"Wha..?" She questioned, motioning with her hands an explosion.   
"Bottlecap mine" Nora explained with a smirk.   
"I thought it might end up this way. Not with you getting nearly torn apart by a mini-gun though" she frowned.   
Shots ricocheted from the steel railings surrounded them, and Nora moved to pick up her rifle and rejoin the fight.   
Piper felt her strength returning.   
"No... don't. It's too dangerous. We have to go" Piper begged.   
"It's alright, I'll be back before you know it. Can't leave without another story for the Publick" she paused, "Local Reporter Nearly Shredded By Pyromanic Raiders" Nora giggled. Piper lightly punched her in the arm.   
"Get outta here"  
Nora put her hands up in surrender.   
"Alright, alright! I'm gone"  
And with that, Nora gave Piper a quick kiss pressed to her check, and legged it from one stack of sandbags to another. Piper was trying to watch her through the only gap that wouldn't have her nose blown clean off. She watched in bewilderment as Nora darted in and out of cover, always shooting at one specific place on the man's power armour. She wasn't even bothering to take any shots at the other Forged members who were also trying to blow her apart with shotgun shells.   
The deadly dance continued for several minutes, Nora's bullets slamming through the power armour with a metallic clang, the spot she repeatedly fired at beginning to heat up to a sizzling orange colour.   
Piper didn't realise what Nora was doing until too late.   
Nora stayed put longer that she should have, rooted to the spot even in the hail of gunfire to land the perfect shot. Her bullet caused the power armour's fusion core to heat white hot, on the verge of blowing itself and everything around it to pieces. Just as Nora dove for cover, a Raider's lucky shot caught her in the foot and sent her sprawling just inches from the safe spot. Piper watched in horror as Nora desperately began hauling herself behind the piece of metal.   
And then Piper's entire vision flooded with white.   
Her ears rang and searing, white hot heat scorched her skin.   
It was over just as suddenly as it had begun, and piper found herself crawling across the floor to where her lover had last been. 

Oh god, what if there's nothing left...

Piper frantically scanned the area. The bubbling lava pit remained, but Nora was nowhere to be seen.   
And then she saw her, sprawled out across the floor and-  
Piper had to step to the side to throw up.   
Nora's injured leg had been blown clean off below the knee.   
But it was not spilling blood like it should have been.   
"Oh... oh my god... Blue.." Piper started weakly, throwing herself to her knees beside her lover, gunshot wound forgotten. Piper scrabbled in vain for the last stimpak Nora has left beside her, and Piper jabbed the needle into Nora's thigh.   
And she waited.   
And waited.   
And nothing happened.   
She could feel her chest constrict disbelievingly, her breath caught as her lover did not stir.   
Piper clutched Nora's blue jacket and sobbed endlessly.   
"What am I going to tell Nat? Preston? the Railroad? I can't write about this- I- I can't  
"You have to be okay, you always are! I didn't follow your sorry ass out here just for you to- .. to-"  
Piper collapsed against Nora, her sobs fierce and choked.   
"Oh, Blue"


End file.
